Rob Bell, Love Wins, heretic, universalist

To be clear:

Rob Bell is hardly a heretic…if so, only in the technicality that he rejects Jesus’ adherence to a religion called 21st century Christianity.

(Correction of a correction) Rob Bell is not an universalist…in his own words, “because I believe that God’s love is so great that He allows you to decide.” Please forgive me on this point, I have been trying to perceive what I didn’t fully understand.

Rob Bell is NOT an unitarian..Jesus is still the only Way…if you know Him but not His name in this life, and in the next after you meet Him.

Rob Bell affirms the existence of Hell more than I have over the past couple of years.

And finally, Rob Bell uses Scripture to paint a Biblical, earthy, and altogether awesome picture of Heaven.

When I was a freshman in high school, I would speak up in Sunday School. One Sunday the teacher began describing Heaven and Hell. Hell was described as a dark, psychologically tortured place of loneliness. Heaven, however, sounded just as bad…our heavenly bodies would be able to cross the universe in a thought, and yet we’d have no need or curiosity in the wonders of the new creation because we’d be so busy praising God in front of a huge throne. At this point, without thinking, I commented “Sounds boring…” at which point I got one of the few scoldings of my life. “Don’t ever say that, even joking. What if some unbeliever heard you and went to hell because you were joking around?”

Fact is, I have sat through several Sunday School classes, under several inadequate teachers, who brought up these ideas of Heaven and Hell and to tell the truth, I’ve always been turned off on this subject. Which is why at some time going through high school I wondered what it would mean for an evil person to be in God’s presence for eternity…hell? A friend of mine shared his own thoughts…He envisioned Heaven as all people sitting down to the feast of Jesus, without elbows. Without elbows, no one can feed themselves, but those who have learned and practiced the love Christ in life will already know how to feed others, and so be fed as well; whereas, those who have learned and practiced selfish, greedy and hateful living, they will either starve or learn to love. Point being, nothing Bell submits is either new or unthought of in the minds of theologians from the first century through today.

A couple of ideas that Rob Bell portrays:

- God goes to such great lengths of mercy and compassion to communicate love to us, but somehow at death, God becomes an absolutist who only honors one “ticket” of salvation. This is the problem.

- God desires all people to be saved and involved in His work in the world and in the world to come…note, this world to come is a lot more like this world than the esoteric world we end up thinking of. Heaven and earth are one in the age to come, which includes a city, the new Jerusalem, that has open gates. These all come from biblical pictures communicated through the prophets, NT and OT.

- Hell is not mentioned in the OT…true. Gehenna, the word Jesus uses, is translated “hell” in our translations. This is obviously the result of the interpretive move that translators have to face. With this in mind, Gehenna is a place of pagan sacrifice outside of Jerusalem, a place where the hungry and homeless would have to fight for food (in such a fight, they would gnash their teeth, making a terrible sound…thus the saying).

- An expository note on the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16): Even among the flames, the Rich Man still assumes Lazarus is a servant…the Rich Man is not yelling across a chasm to Abraham, he simply cannot overcome this hellish chasm that is made up of assumed pride, greed, envy, and coveting.

- Lastly, there is our story, they way we tell our story and the way God tells our story. The prodigal and eldest sons both tell their stories in Luke 15, but the Father tells their stories in a completely different way. Who’s telling are we to trust?

I would and probably should go on, but suffice it say this…Heaven is the world to come, where God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven.  Hell is both the discipline of God for the redemptive purpose of a child’s return, as well as the suffering that comes from dwelling in our own telling of our stories, i.e. being so thick headed that we are upset about who’s in this new world rather than being lost in wonder and awe of this new world.

Critiquing points:

- I feel as though Bell took the Scriptures very seriously in this book; however, he used the Scriptures in the same ghastly way I have found most Evangelics are doing it, by using a verse here or there as propositional statements. In his defense, most of the time he did this it was not to testify to some absolute, inerrant truth backed by two verses; rather, it was to illustrate the prevalence of an idea or characteristic of God. Nonetheless, such a critique is much needed.

- Bell’s critics have this, that he’s not as clear cut as other theology authors. Bell is definitely communicating a more complex idea than we conservative Evangelicals like. However, in his defense…who cares? God forbid an author assumes his readers have critical thinking skills! I think it a historical fact that if Jesus told the stories the Gospels claim He did, He assumed His hearers bright enough to get it on most occasions. So, while critics pick out statements they do understand as controversial, they are not responding to the argument itself, but the conclusions.

Why I find it hard not to concur with Rob Bell…

- Because he is doctrinally sound – I don’t know how to explain beyond that…as progressive as he is, Rob Bell has written five books now and has recorded over 22 NOOMA videos, all of which are challenging and exegetically sound. Some struggled with his mentioning of the Virgin Birth in his very first book, but the problems he brings up are real, unavoidable if you study the Biblical text; which tends to point to a sincerity rarely found in leaders in the Church today. “But new believers don’t need reasons to doubt…” and educated ones do? I’m sorry, if someone comes to know Jesus through the Church today it is in spite of the Church, and She gives everyone plenty of reasons to leave, let alone doubt. A sincere theologian saying, “Here’s a problem you will find…” is not the reason the Church is a whore.

- God is as God reveals Gods self to be – A basic premise of theology. If God reveals Gods self to be a Father who watches the horizons long after He should have given up hope for His prodigal children, that is who God is! If God is revealed to be a God who disciplines or punishes so that tomorrow redemption may be gained, that is who God is! If God is shown to love when all hope is lost, when death is upon us, when we do not deserve it…if God is love…then that is God. Then God does justice in service of mercy, then God hopes when all is lost, then God is One who controls life and death, and no death can separate us from God because that is who God is. If God’s nature is suddenly changed, in view of God being shown to chase the sinners with love as the intension, then God must have deceived us at one point or another. For God to be the Father searching the horizon for His prodigals, that is God as God is in Godself, i.e. even in eternity.

- God’s justice IS unfair – A prostitute rightfully caught in adultery…1 sheep of 100, and the Shepherd leaves…A King who forgives debt, until debtors do not forgive…a Messiah who is only guilty of challenging the assumptions of religious leaders, innocent, yet forgives…I am not one to say how, perhaps through the “second death” having already experienced the first resurrection, or perhaps as those who have chasms as wide as the universe in the hearts, but God’s justice will always be in service of mercy, of restoration and redemption…why do we think that ends with death, especially in view of the resurrection?

- Because Hell has been a tool of manipulation and fear…Because we have been working just to get to the “other side”…Because we are violent as a reflection of what we believe about God. Rob Bell points out that those most concerned with Heaven and Hell are less concerned with bringing about God’s Kingdom, while those less concerned with Heaven and Hell tend to be concerned with those things that break God’s heart. That’s obviously not a blanket statement, but those in the church want to explain away the discomfort of those who have experienced hell on earth (much like Job’s friends, we are of no help), while those outside of the church tend to do a much better job at sympathizing and recognizing hell on earth. Of course, I don’t mean your church, your church would never say “all things happen for a reason” or “it was God’s time for them” while trying to comfort a rape victim or a widow…your church would never hand out pamphlets with “the gospel” printed on them.

- Because “The Gospel is better than that” – the Gospel is better than a proverbial escape plan through Jesus. It is better than “a mansion over the hilltop.” It is better than escaping the condemnation of a God who is caught in a “Catch 22.” Because at Jesus’ table, where the Gospel is the assumption, there is no longer “us” and “them,” “saved” and “unsaved,” “loved” and “unloved;” rather, even the Betrayer’s feet are washed. This is how good the Gospel is, that as we, ever since I started coming to church 25 years ago, have prayed for revival, it has not come and will not come as long as we insist on our version of the gospel. We must trust the Father’s version of our story before we will ever experience such an event.

- Lastly, because so many squirm – Early in my college days I was met with a dilemma. A couple of my professors were teaching from a point of view that was in tension with what I had grown up hearing and believing. For years as a high schooler I had latched on to what I knew and would not budge…if a jock in Berryville, AR was supposed to find Christ in me, I was too busy avoiding “them.” So in college, realizing that I needed to either admit that I didn’t know everything or I needed to transfer to a school that would teach what I already knew, I decided to hear my professors out. They made sense, actually more adequate sense than whatever else I had learned before. I learned in college that when others squirm, it was time to listen most actively and question most thoroughly. So while I may not agree with Bell’s position on the nature of time or with how to provide biblical texts to illustrate a common theme in the Bible, I tend to find more adequate understandings. I guess the point is: If you’re going to call names without understanding, you’re just foolish, giving us all a better understanding of what an inadequate Gospel looks like. I know, because I used to do it.

In closing, I have been blessed to have read Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins. It has reminded and re-shown me the mysterious, miraculous, persevering, and never-failing love of God. And when love wins, we sing:

Jesus Christ, Light of the World
You never did forget me
and when I bled in darkness, You held me
still held me
when desperate nights I cursed You
You loved me, still loved me
Jesus Christ, You dry the tears
You break my heart of stone
Your words are life
cut marrow through
the darkness, to the bone
a heart of flesh You gave me
only You can save me

- Brave Saint Saturn, Daylight

the Great Divorce

Last week over two days, I read “The Great Divorce” by C.S. Lewis. I did this mainly so that I could discuss it with a friend. Lewis once again began to astound me with the imagery, and yet he brings to mind the challenging questions that come when one considers eternity.

Is there a Heaven and Hell? Are they completely separate, or just separated by distances bridged only by grace? Is Hell a self-created place where despair is in the lack of reality? Is Heaven the place of complete reality?

When I finished the book, I realized that I hate the ending! Spoiler Alert! It ends up that the Dawn is really coming in what is Heaven and that the Dark really is going to settle on what is Hell; after which, the bus will stop running. Not only this, but it has all been a dream…a stroke of genius for an author trying to avoid others taking his work literally.

I am left to wonder though if it is an inadequate notion to think of Heaven and Hell in the way Lewis has described them. Heaven is a place of brilliance, where all things are solid, real, and waiting on the Dawn. Hell is a place where all are quarrelsome, selfish, and it seems as though the Darkness is descending. What if they are left in this state? What is being violated if things are left in this state? Why does Lewis think it necessary that Heaven and Hell become closed to one another?

Speak.